Squad Past, Present and Future: A look at the

One source of happiness for the devoted Super Hero Squad fan is a set of leaked SKUs. The leaked SKUs are generally discovered months in advance of promotional photos (which are, themselves released often months before the sets are released), and generally have at least a few solid character reveals. There’s often a partial name that causes confusion, or a generic name that falls victim to speculators who refuse to admit they’re speculating, but overall the SKUs are generally accurate, it’s the people passing them around that aren’t.

Anyway, this is a look back at the SKUs, the accuracy, the confusion, the occasional goof-up and overall, the potential future of the line.

The first batch I could find were:

Storm/Black Panther 65356925203
Cpt America/Fury 65356925204
Wolverine/Chopper 653569925205
Torch/Annilus 65356925206
Iceman/Pyro 65356926032
Thor /Loki 65356926033
Gambit/Rogue 65356926034
Dr Strange/Antman 65356926035

Pretty good right? Ultimate Nick Fury was surprising since we didn’t have a 616 Nick Fury (and still don’t unfortunately), but otherwise they were fairly spot on.

And then we have:

MVL HULK SPIDERWOMAN 65356930140
MVL DEADPOOL PUNISHER 65356930141
MVL CPT AMERICA CABLE 65356930142
MVL BLK SPIDER MAN DOC OCK 65356930143
MVL DAREDEVIL SPDMN 65356930144
MVL WOLVERINE PSYLOCKE 65356930145
MVL SPIDERMAN VENOM 65356930146
MVL GHST RDR MTRCY 65356930147

Which was a fairly straightforward set of SKUs, without much guesswork needed. Now we’re going to get into some of the SKUs that caused confusion.

BEN REILLY/SPIDER-MAN 65356931763
NEW THOR/ARES 65356931765
SPIDER-MAN/HOBGOBLIN 65356931764
WOLVERINE/THE H 65356931766

More straightforward SKUs, but “The H” resulted in some confused checklists referring to the set as Wolverine/The Hulk, which we now know as Hand Ninja. Ben Reilly/Spider-Man was also a bit of a conundrum, as we eventually learned that the set included Carnage. It can either be seen as the SKUs’ first mistake (since it essentially lists two Spider-Men, and omitted Carnage) or it’s just a harmless omission in favor of explaining what Spider-Man was included.
Next is the very straightforward set of:

MVL SPIDER-MAN / ELECTRO 65356933280
MVL SPDER-MAN / SENTRY 65356933281
MVL CAPTAIN AMERICA / RED SKULL 65356933283
MVL BLADE / PUNISHER 65356933282

Followed by the not-so obvious line-up of:

MVL SPD ULTRON 65356934449
MVL SOLDIER AGENT 653569344451
MVL S-M RONIN 653569344447
WEAPON X MYSTIQUE 653569344450

This is a great example of the frustrations and satisfaction one gets from the new SKUs. Mystique, Ronin and Ultron are highly demanded characters, but Soldier/Agent say just enough to not say much. And by not SPD and S-M are just assumed to be new or new-ish Spider-Men, which are frustrating in their own way.

We’ve already talked a little about the 4-Pack SKUs:

MVL CITY IN CRISIS 65356933020
MVL THEME PK URBAN HEROES 65356930439
MVL THEME PK X-MEN 1 65356930256
MVL THEME PK AVENGER 65356931768
MVL THEME PK X-MEN 2 65356931769
MVL WINTR SOLDIER SA 65356933021

With Urban Heroes apparently turning into “Battle For New York”, “City In Crisis” (Or "Spider-Man Saves The Day", as we learned earlier today from Marvelous News) being erroneously credited as the Emma Frost set we now know was X-Men 1, we see that while the information may be right, it’s still subject to change.

We’ve also got:

MVL 4PK THE NEW F4 65356935071
MVL 4PK THE DEFENDERS 65356935072
4 PACK SECRET WARS 65356937551
ALIEN INVASION 65356937552

Which are subject to the normal speculation and considering how long it took to reveal “City in Crisis”, we’ll probably have nothing but speculation for a long time to come.

Mega Packs get into the action sometime too:

MVL SANDMAN S-MAN 65356933016
MVL GALACTUS MR FAN 65356931165
MVL ULT HULK ULT WOLVERINE 65356931166
MVL WENDIGO WLVRNE S 65356933017

And we now know that Ultimate Hulk is a recreation from the Ultimate Hulk/Wolverine mini-series that has yet to finish, and that Galactus is a repaint. Wendigo… well… come on… when has he ever been Mega-sized? On the other hand, in the recent King Sized Hulk, the Red Hulk faced off against a rather tall and lanky Wendigo, so maybe we’ll forgive the fine Hasbro sculptors for their broken sense of proportion. And we may not need another Sandman when regular Giant Man is still unmade, but oh well.

Back to the two-packs though, we finish up with:

MVL SHS SMAN SHANG UPC 65356936178
MVL SHS CYCLOPS MAR UPC 65356936181
MVL SHS THING KANG UPC 65356936180
MVL SHS INSULATED S-M S UPC 65356936179

HLK GRAY HLK LEADER 65356933645
HLK 2PK HULK ZZZAX 65356933646
HLK HULK DOC SAMSON 65356933647
HLK HULK SOH 65356922648

MVL CPT AMERICA BLK 65356937550
MVL SPDR-ARMOR RHIN 65356937547
MVL SPDR-MAN TOMBST 65356937548
MVL BEAST AVALANCHE 65356937549

Where we have all the highs and lows of SKUs. Kang, Leader, Zzzax, Doc Samson, Avalanche are new characters and pretty self-explanatory (but as we’ve seen, sometimes these things change.) We’ve got some other obvious characters like Cyclops, Thing, Hulk, Captain America, Spider-Man and Beast where the question becomes what versions of the characters, whether they’re repaints or resculpts. We also have the reasonable guesses… like Shang becoming Shang-Chi (as many sites reported Hasbro representatives mentioning by name during Toyfair), “Rhin” and “Tombst” being Rhino and Tombstone. And we have others like “MAR”, “SOH” and “BLK” where reasonable guesses include Marvel Girl, Son of Hulk and Black Widow, but are far from definitive.

And there we go, the past present and possible future of the Super Hero Squad, laid out in 11 digit codes.

The Champions rumor

And for the other part of my latest rumor-busting romp, a dissection of the Champions rumor.

Basically, the crux of the rumor is that the Champions and X-Men 2 4-packs have been confirmed by Walmart SKUs.

I already discussed the Second X-Men Super Hero Squad theme pack at length in the City in Crisis post which, to summarize: the second X-Men 4-pack already came out, but because early posts with the SKUs called “City in Crisis” “the one with Emma Frost”, when the official name came out everyone assumed City in Crisis had been named changed to reflect Magneto, and then added City in Crisis back into contention when it was revealed that a 4-pack with that name came out. We got both X-Men packs, we know what “Urban Heroes”, “Winter Soldier Sa”, “Avengers”, and “City in Crisis” are now, and eventually when another X-Men pack comes out, everyone is going to assume it was the X-Men pack that we had the SKU for last year. Long story short: it has been confirmed, but it already came and went and we all have bamfing Nightcrawlers on our shelves.

As for Champions, it is not confirmed by Walmart SKUs.

The known SKUs for 4 packs are:
MVL CITY IN CRISIS 65356933020
MVL THEME PK URBAN HEROES 65356930439
MVL THEME PK X-MEN 1 65356930256
MVL THEME PK AVENGER 65356931768
MVL THEME PK X-MEN 2 65356931769
MVL WINTR SOLDIER SA 65356933021
MVL 4PK THE NEW F4 65356935071
MVL 4PK THE DEFENDERS 65356935072
4 PACK SECRET WARS 65356937551
ALIEN INVASION 6535693755

No Champions listed there. There is mention of Champions coming out of coverage of Toyfair 2008 from Marvelousnews but no SKU, and no other information.

If anything, the fact that “The Champions” are a bit of a name-problem for Marvel, as they discovered during the World War Hulk when they originally pitched “The Order” as the Champions as seen here on Newsarama and then had to change plans as seen elsewhere on Newsarama, means it's probable that if and when we do see a Champions set, it may not even be called Champions, at least not officially. It's unlikely that it would be called New F4 or Defenders though.

So yeah, X-Men 2 was a confirmed Walmart SKU, but it's already been released, and Champions was mentioned at Toyfair, and reported on Marvelousnews, BUT it's not a confirmed Walmart SKU.

Upcoming Rumored Releases/More Walmart SKUs

Boywithgun has released some more Walmart SKUs

2 packs:

MVL CPT AMERICA BLK 65356937550
MVL SPDR-ARMOR RHIN 65356937547
MVL SPDR-MAN TOMBST 65356937548
MVL BEAST AVALANCHE 65356937549

4 PACKS:

4 PACK SECRET WARS 65356937551
4 PK ALIEN INVASION 65356937552

Unfortunately, I'll have to come back later for analysis and discussion, but in the meantime, this keeps up with the 2 Spider-Man 2-packs per wave trend (assuming Spider-Armor and Spider-Man are both Spider-Men), and the minimum one-resculpt/re-release per 2-pack trend.

Hulk Wave 3 SKUs

So Boywithgun has released the newest set of Walmart SKUs, this time featuring the likely third wave of Hulk figures:

HLK GRAY HLK LEADER 65356933645
HLK 2PK HULK ZZZAX 65356933646
HLK HULK DOC SAMSON 65356933647
HLK HULK SOH 65356922648

We all know my policy on "fill in the blanks" when it comes to Walmart SKUs, but luckily there's not many blanks to fill in. Leaders, Zzzax and Doc Samson are going to be welcome additions to anyone's collection. Villains in particular are always welcome!

SOH is, of course, the souce of speculation. Son of Hulk IS a good call though, and I can't think of any other Hulk related characters off the top of my head that might be an "SOH" but it is a little interesting that the other SKUs used many more characters, so SONOFHULK should not have been a problem. Like all these other waves, we'll hold off until we get more information.

It's going to be interesting to see how many of the Hulks and HLKs are going to be repaints.

And finally, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hasbro likes Hulk more than Iron Man. Ok, not entirely true, but just to keep the Super Hero Squad tally going we have

Hulk: 3 waves of 2 packs, a multi-pack with a vehicle, a playset (albeit, a re-release). Of the character selection, we've got oft-requested characters like She-Hulk and Black Bolt, plus lots of fan favorites like Leader, Absorbing Man, Zzzax and Doc Samson.

Iron Man: 2 waves of 2 4-packs. Of those 2 waves, one is entirely repaints, despite the number of Iron Man armors that are still not made. When all is said and done 1 "new character" in the repaint packs: Ultimate War Machine. Of the 16 figures in the 4 4-packs, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man and Ultimate WM are the only new characters (unless you want to give a round of applause to an official, non Collector's Pack repaint version of War Machine.) 12 Iron Men, many of whom are repaints. Even Spider-Man got new sculpts!

And the repaints themselves... with desert armor Iron Man and red-and-yellow "War Machine" are a little questionable when we've got great concepts still waiting... Stealth Iron Man (an easy repaint, as customizers have shown), Thorbuster Iron Man, Iron Man 2020, 90's Animated/Galactic Storm style Iron Man, Repulsor Ray shooting Iron Man, translucent stealth-tech Iron Man. How about Mandarin? Blacklash? Maria Hill, Daisy Johnson, Dum Dum Dugan or even a generic SHIELD Soldier? Granted, Iron Man's rogue's gallery doesn't strike much fear, but you could probably make some lifelong fans with a Chemistro figure. How about a new Doctor Doom sculpt? Different versions of Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man? His Mighty Avengers teammates Black Widow and Wonder Man? A Stark Labs playset a la the Gamma Lab?

For the most important man in the Marvel Universe (arguably) to be treated this poorly... Tony Stark really needs to put some pressure on Hasbro.

Sentry, Electro, Red Skull and Blade at Entertainment Earth

Entertainment Earth has recently put up Wave 9 (although "wave" depends on how you see it since some retailers have started lumping 5 and 6 into 5, thus shortening all of the other waves by a number) of the Super Hero Squad for pre-order. It's not really news, since BoyWithAGun already published the skus on a couple web-sites, but Entertainment Earth is listing the wave as:

Spider-Man & Electro
Spider-Man & Sentry
Captain America & Red Skull
Blade & Punisher

Now, when the SKUs were released, we were given almost full names for the release, thus no "wait... is 'Marvel' supposed to be Marvel Girl? Rachel? Jean? Marvel Boy? Captain Marvel?" or "H? Is that Hulk? Hood? Oh... Hand Ninja... that makes sense." so as I said, it's not really breaking news, nor is it confirmation since online retailers can cancel pre-orders if Hasbro changes the wave up, but I thought a few of you may be interested.

Of note: this wave follows the 4 new, 4 re-do trend that's been going on recently.

It will also be the third wave in a row to feature 2 Spider-Men packs (although wave 8 features the Ben Reilly Spider-Man, so whether you want to call that an exception who knows). Skus for the next two waves feature packs with names like SPD, S-M and S-Man, which, if they turn out to be Spider-Man means we will have 5 waves in a row with 2 Spider-Men per wave for an additional 10 Spider-Men this year.

And finally, it's also a great little tip of the hat to the message board posts saying "Hasbro will never make a Red Skull because they're afraid of kids playing with Nazis!"